Biography: Kalsom Kayat is Professor of Tourism Management. Since 2000, she has been fascinated by resident acceptance and involvement in tourism, in particular in community-based rural tourism. Her research has been influenced by social exchange and power theories which explain the acceptance of tourism. She is also interested in policies formulation and impact relating to tourism. She has engaged in more than 20 research projects, receiving grants from the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) Malaysia and Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). She has published more than 20 refereed papers and presented more than 40 papers at local and international conferences, many of them are regularly cited. Over the last 24 years at UUM, she had served as Director of Research and Innovation Management Centre, Deputy Dean of the School of Tourism, and Deputy Dean of the School of Management. Since 2002, she has been involved in training in tourism management, homestay management and operation, rural tourism, and tourism policy. In training homestay operators, she and her colleagues integrate theory, research, and practice to empower them to improve their operations and product offerings. She headed several policy-related consultancies for the Ministry of Tourism, the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board, and State Economic Planning Units. At the national level, she is one of the MyRA and SETARA auditors for MOHE.